[00:00:00] Speaker A: After the first night, everybody swapped and all the kids were at one table. And God bless those servers. And then one of the couples, which I will say, hi, Tony, if you're watching, he's fantastic. Him and his wife Ray, sat with the kids most nights and had a blast. And the kids loved being there with them. And so then we had, like, this other table of all of us adults being rowdy over on the side.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DC L duo podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding travel, and now also WDW magazine. We are so excited to have them on board with us as a sponsor for these live episodes and our bonus shows. They wanted me to ask you the question, are you the world's biggest Disney cruise fan? Well, you can show off your love of all things Disney cruise with specialty t shirts, puzzles, and bags from DCL magazine. And you can grab a 2025 Disney Wall calendar to start counting down to your next cruise.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: Yay.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: You can head over to a WdW dash magazine.com or click the link in our show notes. And if you head over there right now, you can save 10% on everything in the DCL magazine WDW magazine store with their special code, DClduo all caps. That's DC L duo. That also applies to their magazine subscriptions. I know because I just signed us up for a digital subscription to the resort magazine. So they also want you to add their name, add your name to their waitlist, if you can, for DCL magazine to help make that publication happen. I know, we're super excited about it. They put out a really high quality magazine. We can't wait to see that happen. So.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Yeah, Brian, I want to get one of those calendars. Can we get one of those cruise countdown calendars?
[00:01:45] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, do you really?
Sure. Yes. We're heading over. I'll do it. I'll head over there and get us one. So, from the folks at WWD, WDW magazine, they say, happy shopping. Happy sailing. Thank you, WDW magazine, for sponsoring these live shows and our bonus episodes. I also wanted to make another a couple of announcements. Up here at the front, we got some news, but a couple of announcements. One is, we are super excited to welcome tenfoyle Mousiers into our DCL duo community. He was already a part of our DCL duo community, but he is now writing as a regular contributor to our Substack newsletter. So if you didn't know it, we have a newsletter over on Substack. It's Dclduo dot substack.com. if that's too much for you to remember, head over to dclduo.com dot. You can sign up for it there as well. You sign up, it comes right to your email inbox. You don't have to visit the website, it'll just show up in your email. But we love having CT writing for us over there as tinfoil mouse here. He does a lot of great prognostication, speculation and just the whole nine yards. So we're really, really excited to have him.
He's got an article out today, did a great article on the misadventures of the Disney adventure and how she is or is not going to get over to Asia from Europe. So head over there and read that at our substack. Or you can find all this stuff on our website. We just redid the website, dclduo.com, so you can head over there and check it out. In terms of Disney News.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: Can we introduce our guest, Brian?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I was going to get through all the top of the show stuff, but go ahead because I like to have you introduce the guests in the topic. So.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: I know, but before we introduce, before we do the news, let's at least introduce our guests.
We've got Angie Gargaro from my path unwinding travel with us today. Angie's a repeat guest. She was a plan Disney panelist, of course, specializing in our favorite thing ever, Disney Cruise line and has joined us for tonight's episode. I want her to be a part of our news chat. So welcome to the show once again, Angie, thanks for coming back and joining us.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: I'm so grateful for the chance to talk with you guys again today.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: We were talking to you offline, so I feel like you're already here and so that's why. Anyway, all right, news. So news out of Disney Cruise line today? Not today. Today. Well, speculate rumors of testing, I'll put it that way. That we have heard in the twitterverse that have also made their way onto Facebook on the Disney fantasy. Apparently they have been testing a return to dine and play.
For those of you not familiar with this concept or who started cruising with Disney Cruise line after the pandemic when it did not make its return, dine and play is an option where the kids club staff comes to the main dining room and we'll allow your kids to gather around them and they will take them all to the kids club for you while you continue to enjoy your dinner.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Sam, do you remember piper thing? Basically, yes.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Do you remember? See, was this only at main dining, or did they do it at both seatings? I was trying to remember when we were on before.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: I don't remember. I want. I actually had a vague recollection that it was at late dining, but I honestly don't. I don't remember. Angie, do you remember how they used to do it when the kids were.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Younger and we were cruising before COVID we always had main dining. So that's how I remember it. Okay, I have to really dig back in the memory bank and probably emails.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't remember.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Maybe it wasn't me then. Maybe it was just at main dining. But anyway, they would come to the dining room. They would kind of walk around the dining room and, like, gather kids, like I said, little pied piper style. And then the kids would follow them to the kids club, and they would take them as a group. It didn't mean your kids couldn't go on their own to the kids club, but they just made it easier for the parents, especially for younger kids, where the kids, you know, couldn't maybe walk themselves to the kids club. So a parent would have to leave dining to take them. So. Yeah. Fantastic.
Assuming the rumors are true that this is sort of a test before they bring it back onto the other ships, I think this is a fantastic addition. I will say I'm a little disappointed that, you know, Nathan has basically aged out of this need.
And so we never got a to use it because he wasn't really into the kids club as much before the pandemic. And then post pandemic, he's been, you know, mostly old enough do it himself.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Kashima is saying they definitely had a second dining.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Okay, so maybe it was at both. Yeah.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: It's been so long since they had it, I have completely forgotten how it works. Um, but it's great to hear. Apparently, we heard they were testing on the fantasy. I've also heard that they've actually moved out of testing, at least on the fantasy, and are just doing it now normally. So if you're hearing about this, like, out there, you know, and other ships on the fleet, let us know. We'd love to know if this has made a triumphant return or not. Um, Josh McHenry is saying word on the street, something about new shampoo, conditioner. I saw this. I don't think. I think what's going on is I think Disney bought out h two o, and they've. They. And they started making the products themselves. And so I think that they've just rebranded the bottles. It's the same h two o product, but now Disney makes it themselves.
And then I just have to put up this content because I got to choose the theme music for us. So the intro outro. So theme music always gives me the feels as Adon. So thank you for that.
Okay, a couple of last announcements and we got to dive in and chat with Angie about her cruise. One is we posted on social media, but we are soliciting for feedback about lookout. Kiwi, I realized the other day we've had lots of guests on who've been going to cast away. Very few have been going to lookout, and I would love to get an update on how things are going on the islands and how folks are finding it. So if you have been on a sailing recently and you'd like to leave us some feedback about lookout Key, we'd love to have it and incorporated into an upcoming show. We're using our voicemail line for this purpose. If you didn't know we have a Google voice voicemail line, it's set to do not disturb, so don't worry, we'll never pick up. You just leave us a message. And the number for that is 402-413-5590 402-413-5590 leave us a voicemail over there. We will try to incorporate it into one of our upcoming shows with that, sam, let's, let's dive into our topic for the evening with, with Angie. So take it away.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: All right. Well, we invited Angie to come on our show not only because she's a fantastic guest, but also because she did a group cruise this past July with my path unwinding travel and specifically did a group cruise aimed at Plan Disney alumni and folks who wanted to sail with Plan Disney alumni. So we wanted to talk all about sort of the ins and outs of group cruising, sort of how it works. What are the benefits? We talked a little bit about it on our own episode about our group cruise, but we thought it would be helpful for people to get some more ideas about what this is like and then also just sort of maybe some tips and tricks for sailing with a larger group, even if you're not an official group cruise through Disney. And then, of course, we wanted to get Angie's feedback on lookout key, which she sailed about a month after we did. So operations on the island were certainly more, probably a little bit better of a well oiled machine at that point than when we sailed. But Angie, tell us, when did you decide you wanted to do a group cruise and where did the sort of idea come from to do a planned Disney alumni group crew specifically?
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Honestly, it came from my class. They were the inspiration because we had talked about from pretty much when we were in training for plan Disney, bringing our families together.
At that point, some of them hadn't cruised. And at the point that we did the group cruise, some of them hadn't cruised as well. So we really wanted to do something special as a group to celebrate the fact that we had all come together as a new family, but then also to introduce our families to each other. There's been one offs where we've met each other in the parks, or we may have seen each other. We have a reunion event every year, and so some of our family members might come, like, my sweet Izzy tags along everything with me. So she's met some of the other panelists and their families, but it was something that we had talked about doing for a long time, and we knew that lifting would be heavy. And at that point, when I became a travel agent, I wanted to give that gift back to my plant Disney family and say, hey, I'm happy to take this on. I'd be happy to coordinate it for you. Not fully, if I'm being honest. Understanding what the undertaking was going to be.
It truly was that that sparked it. And then in talking with Karen, we're like, there may be other people that would be interested, not only from the panel, but people that may have been going through the process of the plan Disney process, to apply things like that, that may be interested in joining, too, you know, and one of the things that is kind of group nice about group sailings is if we book them on opening booking, we have this group, we have that pricing locked in, and we can offer that to our guests and to our clients at a rate that might, they may not be able to get later on. So there's obviously some benefits in that. And so once I was like, okay, let's do this, right? Like, let's do this, guys. We're going to get it done. And then it just came about coordination, about, like, what the timing would look like that would work best for everyone. Like, what kind of length the cruise can we dedicate a week? Is a five night more appropriate? Do we want to look at just a weekend cruise to test it out? You know, that those kind of questions start coming up. And, like, with any group, that's where I think people may shy away from wanting to get involved, because there is that level of coordination, that commitment that you have to give to this if you're cruising with other people.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: So that's always a really hard selection point. I think, like, we had. We went through sort of the same. The same, you know, decision making process. Like, when do we plan a cruise for? And we did similar to you. We did summertime. We did earlier in the summer. You did kind of smack in the middle of summer. And then. How long of a cruise now? We settled on a three night cruise.
And I would say there's pluses and minuses.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: I think a lot of flack from half the people we thought were going to show up for that cruise. It was short.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: Kind of have. I'll be honest, I'll say, I think we have a little bit of regret that we made it a five. A three night cruise and not a five night cruise, which were the, like, basically the options available to us.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: I don't have. I don't have regret about that because we end up with a really great showing.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: No, we did.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Like, I'm. I'm happy with what. What the result ended.
[00:12:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I am, too. But I mean, like, longer is always better. Like, so, you know, and that's just like a personal. Obviously, I don't always want to be in a longer. A longer, but, you know, having to figure out, like, yeah, the timing. So you settled on a five night. I know.
What was sort of. Was that just sort of like, okay, well, seven is too long, three is too short. Or, like, where did that come in and how did you choose, like, which ship and which itinerary? Because that's touching.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: So selfishly. I love the magic, so I kind of tried to sway people to the magic just because that's what I like. But it's also where I knew it could kind of help people that hadn't cruised before get more comfortable with the ship more quickly, but then also a length that would allow us to do the things we wanted to do together, but then also allow for some family time because we knew that this was also especially a lot of us with kids, it's harder to get away with all the different activities they have. It was harder to commit to, like, a week, although afterwards, I think we all decided we'd rather do a week next time. Cause we was really hard to say goodbye at the end of that five nights. But that was kind of some of the factors that went into how we decided. And five night did feel comfortable. Like, it gave us the ability to do both, to be interactive with each other, but then also do some things with our own families. And that I think was kind of a nice balance for us.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, you chose a sailing that went to lookout key. Did you guys also go to castaway in your sailing?
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that was also another big point of this one, as we could go to both of Disney's private islands. And one thing that was important for us was to have that time together on one of the islands. So that's how we coordinated that. So, like, on castaway, we had the family cabana and the one next to it, so we could all enjoy that time together. And I think that that was also an important part of why we wanted to make sure that we had both private islands to increase our chances of being able to have that cabana experience as well for everyone that joined us.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: Absolutely. Now, how many rooms did you end up having? I know this is something that's, like, sort of in flux as time goes on, because the Disney for group cruising will let you sort of hold a little bit more rooms than you necessarily have to book at some point, you have to, you know, you are sort of locked in at some point. I don't remember the exact timing and we don't need to go into that level of depth. But how many rooms did you end up having for on the cruise?
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Oh, you're stretching my. Remember, I want to say we had twelve total, and I think seven of them were our class and our panelists.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: So awesome. That is awesome. That's a great turnout. Now, can you, do you remember the makeup of, like, the rooms? Like, did you have mostly concierge sailors, mostly non concierge sailors where they're mostly adults? Were they mostly families? Like, what are we looking at demographically and ship class wise?
[00:15:17] Speaker A: It was a really good mix across the board. So we had families, we had couples. We also then had ocean view staterooms up to concierge and then, you know, Sam Bougie, like you, from a DCL perspective, I was fortunate and blessed enough to stay in the royal suite and which was, it was nice and it was something that I hadn't considered, though, necessarily when I first went into this endeavor, is having that other private space that as a group, we could meet. So offering the opportunity to go hang out and even if you had, like, a one bedroom, and we did also, like a welcome event as well, and ogils. So we had opportunity to all as a group, but it was really nice to have that common space where we could just chill. And I think the kids use it more than us, to be honest. We would go to, like, the drawing classes and the trivia we got really into trivia. But in my group, I will tell you, I wasn't at all of them, but they, they held it down like they came back with some, some metal, for sure. It was very nice.
It was just, it was a good opportunity to have that space on board, too. And I think that's something you have to consider when looking at a group cruise, too, is how involved do you want to be with the group as a whole? And it might depend on the makeup of your group. Are you cruising with other DCL fanatics? Are you cruising with just like, a large, multi generational group that might be multiple families and multiple. So there's different, I think, levels of group cruising, too, that would then dictate how you want to set up that group on board?
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Josh has a good, good question here, which I think there's a couple of questions actually flow from this. He said, do you need to select category? So, Angie, talk to us about their minimums. To have an official kind of group sailing, the mechanics of it, and then maybe the pros and cons, because I think people think group cruising. There's true group cruising with Disney Cruise line, and then there's kind of the alternative, which is just everyone plans the same cruise and gets together, and there's nothing stopping you from sort of doing meetups at different bars and things like that. What's the benefit of doing the group cruise as opposed to just kind of like organizing something and letting people book it? And it's not really an officially sanctioned group cruise?
[00:17:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: So first, Joshua, to answer your question, too, we, as the travel agents setting up, if we're doing a formal group, do select the categories in advance. And so we try to look at who do we believe is going to join this group? Are they existing clients? Do we know what they already like to book and enjoy? And then we try to make sure that we match that up. And we do have some capability then of going back to Disney if we, we don't have a category or we sell out of a category that maybe we want to adjust. It depends on occupancy at the time that you want to make the change and all of that. But there is some wiggle room with that as well.
But the big thing that I learned from doing this group cruise was just the understanding and having some of those conversations before. But like I had kind of mentioned a little earlier, if we're booking, like, opening day prices, to get that good, I hate to say, deal. Cause I don't think there's really much of a deal with Disney Cruise lines, but we get that opening day pricing, and then we can offer that long term. So that's one of those benefits that come inherently with booking a cruise ahead of time and making some of those decisions, especially with concierge rooms, we can see those go up over time, specifically, you know, some of the larger groups and then the verandas that kind of become a little more scarce as you move forward. We have that. And yes, Josh, it is tricky, and we learn every time we do it.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: But, but the nice thing on the tricky aspect, the nice thing is, like, Josh, when we were planning our group cruise, Disney did give our travel agent, Karen, who organized our cruise, a little bit of a heads up around what the itineraries were going to be before they got released, so that she could help us figure out what date we wanted and all that sort of stuff. And even as we're thinking now about a future adventures by Disney river cruise, I mean, the one thing to consider as well is itineraries don't change that much. Like the ship sailing them might shift, but, you know, you're always going to have some like three, four night Bahamians, some five night, you know, Caribbean Bahamians, that sort of thing. And they all tend to kind of happen around the same time of year and, you know, all that sort of stuff. So as you're thinking about the pre planning, if, you know, you've got a group, you. You can start to solicit interest pretty far out and get a sense of what kind of rooms people want before they go on sale and get the block registered and all that stuff. So. So it is work. I won't. And thank God we didn't have to do it. Thank you, Karen. But. But, you know, it's. It can be really worthwhile for the reason that Angie noted, which is you're locking in that opening day pricing, so.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: Right, well, and the other thing I would add to what Brian said is what I know, that for your cruise, Angie, and for our cruise, um, that Karen had sort of a form like that people could fill out, and this was before booking, but just to, like, for interest. Right. Say I'm interested. And, you know, this is the type of room category that are categories that I would be interested. And so that at least gave some guidance to my path unwinding travel as to what to put, you know, a hold on. Right. Or what to ask Disney to put a hold on. And as you mentioned, Angie, there. There was some ability to adjust. It was. But it was based on Disney's opening.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: But remind, remind folks. Angie, let me start. We asked two questions, so let me start with the first one. What's the minimum number of rooms you need to reserve?
[00:20:43] Speaker C: Brian?
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Yeah.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: At the time that we did it, I believe it was eight. But I don't know if it has changed since then.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's gone up to like ten or twelve. Karen's in the chat. I bet she can answer that question for us pretty quickly. And then like, pros. I know one of the things you get from doing an official group cruise is you get some help from the groups department and they will organize generally kind of the welcome reception that you mentioned in one of the bars on board for folks.
They help, helped, help, helped us by delivering gift bags to people's staterooms. So we didn't have to do that. You know, they helped us get reservations at Palo for like a group. A group, you know, brunch.
Did we do a group? No, we did group brunch only because we were three night.
And I think they even helped us with cabana reservations because we were a group and getting like kind of one of the larger cabanas too, for the group. So, so I, that's kind of the, my memory. Am I getting that right or is.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: There anything I'm missing to all of that? That was really the perks of doing it. And, you know, even going back to Joshua's point about being tricky, the nice thing is, if you do work with a travel agent to do these groups, it's tricky for us, maybe behind the scenes, but you can just book it and be happy and show up and do all the fun things. So that's a really, a really nice benefit too, of doing like that. Official group is you've got that power with your travel agent advocating for you, and then Disney Cruise line actually going through and helping your travel agent and working together in concert to make sure that you have all those reservations that are very difficult sometimes to get for a large group like that. Like Brian talking about Paulo, we did the same thing. We did Paulo brunch. And it was so nice to have that, knowing that you're going in and you have that opportunity to have that room and be able to all eat together. And, you know, I see tinfoil mossiers. You had asked that same question. The premium dining. Yeah. So we did the Paolo brunch too. And that's where Disney Cruise line was really helpful from a group's perspective.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Yes. And we didn't just do Paulo brunch in the private room we also had, because we could only fit twelve people or 14 people. I can't remember if it's twelve or it's either twelve or 14 in the magic and in the private room, but we had other people who were doing brunch at the same time. So we actually had those who we kind of tried to do a little bit of randomness and sort of spread the DCl duo around a little bit. So we had different people that we ate with between main dining versus Paulo and things like that. But we were able to also, through groups, get other people, Apollo brunch reservations at the same time in other smaller groups. So, you know, we had, I want to say we had at least four other tables eating brunch in the restaurant when we had the private room. So, yeah, it definitely makes, makes a difference now. And yes, Matthew Pella with a group is awesome. And it is better than, I mean, it takes longer. That's the one thing. The meal is longer, would you say, Angie?
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. We were like, all of a sudden and we're like, oh, it's 01:30 p.m. i guess we're going to go on to the next thing now.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: CT is asking, is there a change to the deposits in group cruises? And I don't know if you know that. I mean, it feels like, it feels like basically the travel agency or the group, the lead for the group is basically guaranteeing Disney some amount of rooms. And so I think the deposit like policy is whatever that lead needs to set it at. Because if you back out, like they own that room, they need to, they need to get somebody to sail on it, especially if they're past the deadline to make any changes. Like, we did have some ability on, on our group crews to give back some of the rooms if we weren't going to use them. But, you know, we couldn't, we couldn't just be like, well, we didn't meet your minimum. Can we sail with the group like we had to fill the rooms?
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly right. So the deposit and even the cancellation may vary slightly from what Disney cruise line outlines. It may depend on the group organizer to set that because to Brian's point, we're putting that on the line and having the deposit out there and putting the agency to have those rooms filled. So if there is like a last minute cancellation or something, the travel agency or the group organizers on the line, so oftentimes we will put a larger deposit down and require that, or there might be a different cancellation schedule. But if you're ever booking a group cruise, you definitely want to make sure that you understand that before you put your deposit down so that you know what the expectation is from that group organizer.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, there was one thing that I will say, that if it was early enough in the process, there was an ability to swap out guests that was a little bit different because the reservation was held by the group, not by individuals. So, like, if I, for some reason, months before, knew that I couldn't go, but there was another guest that could take my place that was actually, we were able to do that. So there were a couple of people. As long as we could fill the room with a person. Right. And so we could basically swap one person's deposit for another. But it still had to be earlier on in the process and not. Not the last minute changes or not. Because once it's all loaded with DCL, then you don't really have that ability to change. It's just because of Disney's policies. There's a great question about group meetups. Yeah, Nathan. Yeah.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So, Nathan, they did not charge. They don't charge you for the welcome. It's kind of like a benefit you get for guaranteeing that many staterooms for them on board the ship. So there was no charge for that. We got to pick what was. It was like two hot appetizers and three cold appetizers. And. And there was like a. An open. An open bar.
[00:26:25] Speaker C: Open bar, yeah.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Open bar, yeah. And that was.
[00:26:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: That was included as a part of the group. And then. And then. Hold on 1 second.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I just want to be clear. There was also non alcoholic drinks available.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: And the venue was private for us. Like, they put up a sign that it was private. It was closed for a private function. Uh, the animators pal thing is totally separate. Like, that was something that. But we had to ask Disney's pr folks and groups for permission to record and fill out a bunch of paperwork and stuff. And then they had the group's people sitting in the back, I think, overseeing our recording a little bit. But that was just, that's totally separate. You get one welcome meetup. They don't reserve kind of other venues beyond that unless you've got some sort of special permission from Disney. So.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: Yeah, they will. I mean, there's some flexibility to do it, but they. But it's not an automatic. Right. So, like, so.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Well, the dentists on board were having meetings and animated, so.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. They were having. Right. They were having meetings. So the welcome reception is the included reception with food and beverage. And then beyond that, you can get permission to use other spaces on board for meetups. But what?
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Dependent on availability. Yeah. And dependent upon availability.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And Karen's saying, yep. The dentists were using animators, so there was a dentist group on our group crews at the same time. A bigger group than our group, actually.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: And Karen's saying she thinks it's a 14 room minimum now for, for a group. So it's. It is a. It is a commitment. Like, no, no questions. Um, and that's why I highlighted up front, too, there is an alternative strategy here that, you know, a lot of folks do, which is we're going to pick a sailing. We're all going to sail together, but we're not going to, like, you know, commit to 14 rooms of people sailing together. I do think Disney's trying to make these group cruises on the cruise line. True, like, group affair kind of thing. So. Yeah. Um, and I will. I will say Karen might slap me around here, but, uh, I. If I do recall, Karen said that Royal Caribbean is a little bit easier to do from a group standpoint. So if it's something you're really interested in and you've, you know, don't mind sailing on Royal Caribbean, their group's process can be a little bit easier to deal with. But, um, we loved our group cruise on Disney cruise line, just for full disclosure, so. Yeah.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So let's. Let's talk. Angie, uh, there's a great question. I'm gonna have you answer it. Can a group choose their dining rotation once they commit?
[00:28:44] Speaker A: So, like, anything with Disney, you absolutely can ask for this, and they will fulfill it if they're able to do so. So it's never guaranteed. And I don't think I'd wanna ever say anything like a dining rotation is guaranteed. But we did look at what dining rotations were being offered and then tried to decide, like, what made the most sense for our group, like, what nights did. We want to make sure that we were really spending the time together, if there was something else that somebody wanted to do. And we did request it, and we were granted the dining rotation that we had. And I think, you know, you kind of talked about it before. Sam is even, like, with the adult exclusive dining, we have the main dining rooms with groups, too. They can make it so that just like with any other reservation that you're linking, that you're all sitting together. Like, we ended up with two tables for our, a large group, and after the first night, everybody swapped and all of the kids were at one table. And God bless those servers. And then one of the couples, which I will say, hi, Tony, if you're watching, he's fantastic. Him and his wife Ray, sat with the kids most nights and had a blast. And the kids loved being there with them. And so then we had like this other table of all of us adults being rowdy over on the side. And I think that's, you know, one thing, too, that's really nice is, you know, then you're all going to be seated in the same area, especially if it's a larger group, to be able to kind of have that camaraderie even in the dining room as well.
[00:29:55] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's, I think it's really great because, you know, we had some ability to even match people up with folks for seating that might not have known each other otherwise, or just to kind of. But you could also just say, have them do it randomly. Right? Like, you could have let DCL do it, but basically ask to be, you know, in this, you're asked to be in the same rotation, in the same section, that sort of a thing. So that's really helpful. And you can, as folks did on our cruise, some people can choose early dining and some people can choose late dining. That's okay. It just means, obviously then you're not going to be all eating together. We all were technically in the same rotation, but some people were in early dining and some people were in late dining. So we were in the same dining room with the same servers, but at different times. Yeah.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: So Ed's asking, does the organizer of the group cruise essentially function as our travel agent in place? Yes. Although I'm going to tell you, if you are interested in doing one of these, use a travel agent.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: Use a travel agent.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: It was a lot of, it was, I could tell from Karen it was a lot of work on her.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: Don't be the organizer. So I want to be. I want to be clear. So Brian and I, for our DCl duo inaugural podcast cruise, I want to be very clear. We were not the organizers from Disney's perspective.
Sorry, Brian.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: And we did nothing.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: No, I don't say we did nothing, but we were not the organizers. We let Karen, from my path, unwinding travel, take the lead and be the organizer. Now, Angie, you are a travel advisor yourself, so you and Karen, I think, jointly, right. Were the organizers for your group cruise. But I would say from the client perspective, use a travel agent. Let them be the organizer, especially if you're selling with family like a big group of family. I wouldn't want to be the organizer.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: It's hurting cats.
Everyone who showed up for the group cruise loved the entire experience and was so thankful to not have to engage in like, maybe 2% of the planning in advance. So like, that. That. This is a place where I would say if you don't typically use a travel agent for a cruise, use one this time because they will better understand the group cruise dynamics and how to work with groups. I think Karen has a lot of experience with that now, so highly recommend her. But. But, yeah, it. It's a place where I would not do this again without the benefit of a travel agent.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, and I think to answer Ed's question directly, if you were not using a travel agent, then yes, your organizer would basically function as your travel agent without getting any commission for it. Let's put it that way.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Although. Although we could. I mean, I just want to highlight, like, we could still go week. We did our.
I can't. We did. We do our online booking stuff. I think. I don't think we had much to.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Do, but there was really nothing to do. But yeah, we did. Because I think we booked like, parasailing ourselves. Right. Like, so we.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: I think we still had control of your reservation. It's not like it's, you know, in a black hole. You can still go on the Disney Cruise line website and see it. And if you want to book activities and stuff, you can do that. Like, so it's. It's no different in that. That regard as far as I recall. Yeah.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: And I'm thinking about Ed's question too. Maybe this is what you were getting at, is if you have a travel agent. So let's say that you work with Kayleigh at my path unwinding. Right. And the group is being offered by my path unwinding. But you love to work with Kayleigh because she's awesome. You can still book that group with Kaylee through my path unwinding. So you don't. You can still, you know, have that relationship with somebody who already knows what you want, already knows your needs, like, understands what your vacation travel style is. But if you were having a travel agent outside of the agency, that potentially would be offering it. I don't know that that would be an option. But from a perspective, internally with our group, we always are able to book for each other's. We have a couple group cruises out there right now scheduled for 2025, that if I had a client that's interested, I'm talking with them about it, and I'm getting them on that cruise. So that's something that you definitely can do. Hopefully that kind of answers your question a little bit about that to do.
[00:33:58] Speaker C: You love planning vacations but get tired of being the one that has to figure out all the details like Brian does? Whether youre planning a family vacation, a romantic getaway or group travel, taking care of everything can sometimes be a hassle. Thats where my path, unwinding travel comes in. When you work with them, you can be as involved as you like but have a trusted advisor sharing accurate information and giving you new travel ideas to ensure that your vacation is fun and seamless. And for group travel, they can help field all the questions and make sure everything is coordinated like they did for us with the inaugural DCL duo podcast Cruise. They might even be able to get you special pricing or exclusive group perks. So whether youve got something booked or youre thinking about booking, reach out for a complimentary
[email protected]. dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com to let them know who sent you. Thanks to mypath unwinding for sponsoring todays show. Now back to the episode.
First I want to ask you, what do you got on tap for 2025? And then we'll go back to talking about this cruise.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah, so Kimberly, with my path unwinding is actually offering a Rhine river cruise in November of 2025, which I think will be really, really cool. And I'm trying to figure out how I can work my schedule around that one. And then the my path on winding as a whole has a croatian charter that's a yacht cruise. And so that one's really cool, too because it's just 30 guests. So it's really unique, really exclusive. And my path unwinding has all 30 of those seats. So chances are you're going to be going with somebody else that is already working with our team and some of our team members as well. So those are kind of some nice options that we're offering already going into next year. And I'm toying with the idea of doing another group cruise myself with Disney Cruise line. And I'm kind of waiting to see what comes out for summer of 2026. So we'll see what happens there.
[00:35:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Well, can I say, can I say, dear Kimberly, if you're out there listening, you're going to come on to our show and talk about that Ryan river group cruise. If that's through adventures by is that through adventures by Disney no, it's.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: I know. I'm sorry.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: I wanted to hear all about it and how it worked. All right, well, that's too bad. Okay, well, Kimberly, we won't have you. No, I'm just kidding. We can.
[00:36:05] Speaker C: Is she doing that on Ama waterways, by the way, or is she doing it on somebody else?
[00:36:09] Speaker B: I'm guessing it's amazing.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: So I think it's part of the AMA group. Yes.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
I thought for sure you're going to say talk, because I know Karen just loves talk right now.
Sorry, Karen, I'm speaking for you. There's a question here from Julie. She said, can guests apply a placeholder discount to a stateroom within a group?
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah, unfortunately not. That's not something, at least at Disney, that we're offering at this point with our group cruises or that Disney has offered. You know, anything can change at any point, but at this point, we were not given that option for these groups. Groupings.
[00:36:39] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what we. Yeah, it's a great question, but, yeah, it's kind of like a maiden voyage, right there. They are giving some special benefits already, and they're giving you the locked in day one price. If you are. If you're. If your group is organized enough to book through groups at that time, you will. You can lock in basically the pearl pricing, which is not locked in day.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: One here is for pearl even regardless of your status.
[00:37:06] Speaker C: Right. So if you are, you could be a silver cruiser, you could be no status cruiser, you could be whatever status, and you could get locked in pearl prices. Well, so let's. Let's talk about. Well, let's talk about if you were to sail, let's say, without a group cruise, meaning without an official group cruise. But what would you say are some, maybe some. Some tips for people sailing as a large group of things to think about and maybe plan in advance if you're, you know, if you're doing this not through Disney groups, I mean, hopefully you're using a travel agent because, again, it's still hurting cats. But what would you say, Angie, would be some tips.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: You know, I think the biggest thing is be organized with it. Things as simple as just linking your reservations on the Disney cruise line app so that you can coordinate your dining, you can coordinate your onboard activities, you can coordinate your port adventures. That's kind of step one, but then also taking a step back and just looking at what is the right cruise for your group. Like, if you are sailing with somebody who cannot find a date, you know, help them find the date and then kind of see if it works for everybody else. And then communication, keeping that updating, making sure you have the important dates figured out, like, what day is my, is everybody's actual cruise balance due? What day are we going to be booking our online onboard activities and our port adventures? And then what day do we need to make sure that we're checked in? And is everybody checked in? Is everybody ready to go? Does everybody have their travel documents? It's just one of those things where communication becomes such an important piece of it and then understanding how it all works. You know, some of the, you know, I would say are not necessarily group cruises, but they're like, five or six staterooms that I'll book for families or friend groups that are going together. Understanding people's. Are they returning cruises? Are they part of the castaway club? Have they never cruised before? Well, how are you going to coordinate that for advanced booking? Window opens, or even, like, recently with the Jesse destiny? When can people all book their rooms? And are there different ways to maybe assign the room to make sure that everybody can book at the same time? And so some of those things are really helpful to think through. They're also a really great reason to consider a travel advisor who can give you all that guidance along the way.
[00:39:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Like figuring out you might want to book somebody in a different room than the room they're actually going to sleep in in order to spread out this higher status so that people can book earlier. Right. And get a better choice of rooms, for example, or get an earlier booking window for activities. Because as long as there's one pearl in a particular room, that whole room can book onboard activities when pearl booking opens. Right. Or maybe it's a platinum cruise or whatever status. Yeah. If you can spread out the status, that's a great strategy. But you can't if you don't know to do that or know how to sort of arrange things or, and keep track. I think that keeping track of those deadlines is really key, Angie, because like you said, if you have five or six rooms that you're dealing with, I don't know how one keeps that managed just from a organizational perspective.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: So you gotta elect somebody to be the leader, somebody's gotta own it all and to keep everybody else in line. That's, that's probably the biggest tip if you're gonna do it outside of that way.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: I nominate Karen. All right. So I just wanna shift who's been, who's been killing it in the chat, too, by the way. I just wanna, I wanna shift gears for a minute. Your cruise went to Lighthouse Point, and as I said at the top of the show, we're trying to get feedback on Lighthouse Point. Now, you were there shortly after we were in your cruises in July, right? Is that right, Angie? Yeah. Yeah. What did you think of Lighthouse Point overall, and what kinds of observations did you have of the experience? And if you got feedback from folks in your group, what did they think?
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Honestly, I loved it. I thought it was great. I loved that it gave a lot more options for people to spread out. Like, that whole expansive side of the family beach is so nice to have all of that extra room, all of the seating, the extra beach and sand space between the chairs and the ocean. But then, like, I have one client that I think of immediately loves waves, loves to swim in the waves, wants the open ocean. So for her, this was a great option because she got a little bit of that instead of at castaway, where you're a little more secure and there's kind of that. That calm. So that was kind of some of the things that stood out to me. I also liked that there was a really good balance of each space being kind of its own experience.
With castaway, you're kind of everything's all kind of in a way together, and you're looking at the bar while you're kind of checking into something else or you're sitting in a chair, and it kind of all kind of comes together. Whereas I feel like with lookout, you had your eating area, you had the opportunity to go watch some of the performers in the entry. There just seemed to be a little bit more that you could immerse yourself in the moment versus kind of like, if you're like me, I'm like, ooh, squirrel. And so if something else is happening over here, I stopped paying attention to what I came to see. So for me, that kind of helped. But I also. I really liked the dining experience. I thought there was a lot more options for food. We did have a cabana on lookout, too, so we got to kind of experience both. That was kind of a nice. I liked the cabana. The just kind of being away from it really felt away from everybody on lookout versus cast away. But I just. I loved the setup. I don't love the tram because I'm a walker. Like, I will walk myself to Serenity Bay. I don't care. I like steps in, but.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: So the tram, that's a long. That's a long, oppressive walk, Angie.
[00:42:46] Speaker C: I love walking it.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: Like, I'm from Minnesota. We have eight months out of the year, we can't go outside. Right. So that outdoor time, I want that walking time.
But I also, I question where Serenity Bay was put in place, where the family cabanas were put. Like, I almost feel like naturally could.
[00:43:05] Speaker C: Have been the opposite. Right.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: Yeah. That was my only thing that I kind of was a little thrown off by. But both were great spaces, and you still had that space away. But, like, secretly, as a cabana booker on the family beach, I love that space, and I was okay with having my kids there. That was no problem.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I suspect I've said this on the show before. I suspect the reason they put Serendi Bay where it is, is they couldn't destroy that sand berm that's over there and put the cabana sort of within eyesight of the shoreline. And so I suspect that they had to do what they did, because in Serenity Bay, the adults can be back off the beach and be down playing in the beach, and it doesn't matter. But if you're on a family cabana, you want to be able to see the kids in the water if you're not with them. So. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in that unprotected cove area. All right. So we got asked the all important question, which is how. How is the food and how are the flying pests? Yeah.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: So we, we didn't notice them as much. That was one thing that I was concerned about coming in because obviously, I wanted the best experience for my cruisers, and I was like, oh, I don't know about this fly mess, but in the regular dining spaces, they were pretty well under control. They, by then, they had the little fans out there, and they were doing a good job of controlling them at that point on the Cabana beach. So we were in cabana ten, which.
[00:44:20] Speaker C: Was right next to them.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: Yeah, we had a lot of flies. We had to shut the doors and eat our lunch and then have it taken away. But I think I've even heard that's been better since the most recent cruises, too. So I think that situation was okay and under control by the time we were there in July, but I think it's even improved since then, from what I've heard.
[00:44:41] Speaker C: Now, I saw that Tracy is saying that Angie's just looking for the five K medal. So I'm sure, like, like us, you are awaiting when maybe lookout key has a place where you can do a five k, and then you can, you can hit the five k just by walking to Serenity Bay. Maybe.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Tracy, I appreciate the fact you think I'm a five K runner. I'm not running. I am walking that.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: Well. You don't need to run the five k. You're a castaway. You can run or walk. So there you go.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: No, I'm just doing it for fun. I'm weird. What are you going to do?
[00:45:15] Speaker C: Love it. Now, we've got a good, another question here about groups that mix experienced cruisers and newbies.
Anything specific to keep in mind? Now, your group did, I think, mix newbies and experienced cruisers. I will say I don't know that we had anyone on our group cruise that was a total newbie. We definitely had a few people who had sailed less, but we had quite a few pearl and platinum cruisers in our group. So, yeah, what would you say, you know, how, how did that shake out and were there specific, you know, things you needed to do differently to maybe help some of those newbies along?
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, the biggest thing was just getting ready for the cruise, too, helping them understand what to expect, like what things they could pack that would make their cruise more enjoyable and that they may not think about booking on another vacation, but on a cruise, it becomes more helpful to have those things, understanding what the process was as far as booking, how to make the payments, how to make the plans for port adventures, how to utilize your advance booking window to your advantage, and then even just preparing for boarding and then debarking. Because if you haven't been on a cruise before, that can be a really intimidating process. So having either your group organizer or some of the folks that are seasoned cruisers lend their experience and their tips to the new cruisers so that they have the opportunity to not be, you know, stressed out or with anxiety about what they don't know, have somebody talking with them that does understand what that experience is like. And then also, you know, keeping that in mind, that if as a tenured cruiser, there's things that I might not do on a cruise because I times or I've experienced this, or I may say I'm going to skip animators palette because I've been there a million times and I'm going go to Palo, well, that other cruiser may not have experienced animated fails. And if you're on like a three night, that becomes so much more important.
[00:47:05] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Then you might say, okay, if we want to try, Paulo, let's do a brunch. So our first time cruisers get all of the rotational dining room. So it's little things like that that as you're going through that process, understanding that you have to kind of meet in the middle help each other out, but just helping them understand what to expect and understanding what they want to do. Like, one of the things I think is so important is when you're planning a vacation, understanding what you want to get out of it. Right? Like, do you want to just go and get away and relax and you've done it a hundred times and you just are kind of going because it's your favorite thing or is it something new that you truly are experiencing and it's all about food for you. So dining rooms are important. The extra dining experiences are important. Understanding, you know, that they're shawarma like, things like that. That otherwise a new cruiser might not know, so.
[00:47:51] Speaker C: And they might miss.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:47:53] Speaker C: No, I'm curious as to what you used for communication primarily. Like, did I, did you, you know, for your crews, were you emailing people? Of course. I know there would be emails, obviously, like, about, okay, your booking window's coming up. That sort of a thing. But how was the best way that you felt like organizing worked like a communication work? Was it a Facebook group? Was it, you know, was it a combination of, you know, these things? I mean, what was the best communication method?
[00:48:21] Speaker A: So, confession time. I am an over communicator on everything, and most people that work with me probably feel that from time to time when they get, like, an extra long email about, hey, don't forget this and this and this, this. But we did a combination of everything. So we had a larger we travel site similar to what you guys had for group communication. Kind of the formal thing for everybody that needs to understand, here's what's going on. We then did more personalized email communication, so, like, my first time cruisers, I could give them more detail about what this next step is. And then we did our smaller group had a Facebook page, so we could talk about, like, what to expect, what our plans wanted to be, what did we want to do, what was most important, and have those conversations in that context. So it really depends, I think, on the group, too, like, how involved or intricate the planning for a lot of the minutia is for that group versus if it's more of a high level and it's more of, like, an affinity group. And there's a lot of, you know, like the DCL duo, like, having that together, you know, are they all cruising together, or is it that they want every intimate detail of it planned so there's a different level depending on what your group is?
[00:49:22] Speaker B: I just wanted to put this coming up from Julie. It sounds like cruising for the first time with a group is better versus cruising. So I want to say, julie, I don't think you to have, like, a full on group cruise experience for that to be a better first time experience on DCL. I would say our first cruise was a little mini group cruise because it was Samantha and I, uh, her, you know, childhood friend and his husband and then two of our friends here from the Seattle area. And we were just going on a cruise to celebrate my birthday. Her Samantha's friend was very knowledgeable about Disney cruise line. Super. And so help the rest of us figure out what we needed to do. So I would say two things. I don't think you have to have the full and group experience, but it's always helpful, you know, if you're experiencing something for the first time, to have someone who knows how to do it. I think that's, you know, especially true with Disney in general, but you can find that in other ways without having to actually have someone sail with you. One of them, not to harp beat a dead horse here, but is a travel agent who's very experienced. We always talk about, when you choose a travel agent, don't just pick an agent or pick an agent that gives, like, the most onboard credit or whatever it is. Like, figure out if they're the right fit for you and they're really knowledgeable about the product that they're selling. The other way to do this, though, is, hi, we're the DC. I'll do it. We've got this show and we give tips and tricks, people on who sailed a lot or sailed the first time, and they share their experiences of what they would have done differently. So there's lots of resources to kind of recreate that without you having to, like, do a whole on group cruise or get a bunch of people to sail with you and find someone who knows Disney cruise line. But I will say our first experience on Disney was made all the more perfect because we had someone in our group who really understood how things worked and was directing us, like, do you want to do this? You absolutely don't want to do that kind of thing, so.
[00:51:05] Speaker C: Right. And showed us even around the ship, I mean, like, we were, we were very spoiled. Like, we did not have to. Our friend told us, like, all the things for online booking at, like, what we needed to do when. And, like, you know, like I said, like, basically held our hands through our entire first cruise. And now we know that that's not necessarily a possibility for everyone. But I would say on, like, in hindsight, I could have gotten a lot of that by use of a knowledgeable travel advisor. Right. Like somebody who, who has sailed Disney Cruise line, who books Disney Cruise line, who is, you know, who has a personality that I like and get along with. Right. Like, so, you know, finding, as Brian said, the right fit. I could have gotten that information then. The DCL duo podcast did not exist back then, so I did not, am not listing that as a resource because we weren't, we weren't around then. So.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: And Tracy is saying or just talked about, I agree with this.
If anyone will talk about Disney Cruising, it's other people on a Disney cruise. In fact, we just did that show on version where people were somebody saying, oh, yeah, and there are a bunch of Disney cruisers in the restaurant comparing it to Disney Cruise line. So, like, Disney Cruisers talk about Disney Cruise line a lot and they're happy to share their information and knowledge with anyone. I will say buyer beware on tips and tricks from various people given us your mileage may vary. Right. And there's no one right way to do any of this stuff, in my opinion. I'm a big believer in there's no one right way to do Disney, although we, I guess, are having a live guest on it next week that that feels differently. So. Or at least has a handle that suggests otherwise. We'll get to that in a second.
Sam, what else, what else do you want to ask? Well, I mean, I, we're having a travel agent, Instagrammer on who's called we do Disney.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: So obviously they have a viewpoint on how to do Disney. Love, love Emily, love all of her content. So no knock on her, but I'm of the philosophy there is no one right way to do it.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: Sure, there isn't a right way, but there are tips and tricks to make things easier and there are right ways to do certain things. Right. Like there are, like, for example, right. So there, if you miss your, you know, 75 day window or opening to book your onboard activities, you're left with whatever's left. Right. Like things like that. So there are, there are some, some universal truths that I think that people, you know, people can learn about and learn from.
I love this comment from Tracy. This. Choose your own adventure and see the pun there. We see the pun. Adventure.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Tracy December cannot get here soon enough. We can't see.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: Yeah, we can't wait to see you, Tracy. Crazy. But, Angie, tell me a little bit about choose your own adventure as a part of group cruising. Right? Like, is everybody doing everything together when you're on a group cruise?
[00:54:00] Speaker A: Yes and no. It really is choosing your own adventure because you can, you can set it up where everybody's doing everything the same and they're meeting at this time at this place, and then these people are going here, or you can wing it and just have a couple of events that people just join up as they want. I mean, that's the beauty of cruising in a lot of ways, is that there are so many different ways to do the cruise because there's so many different things to do on the cruise.
[00:54:24] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and one thing, you know, I think we haven't talked about is, like, drink tastings. Right. So we, we arranged a group brunch. You arranged a group brunch for your cruise. You also worked with groups to arrange for cabanas and to get specific cabanas, when I mean specific, you not necessarily have to ask for a particular number, but that you want, like, two right next to each other. Right. But I believe you can also do, like, drink tastings and, you know, some of the other, like, on board offerings that require reservations through groups. Right? Am I or am I wrong with that? I don't know.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: See, we didn't explore any of that because that was not what we wanted to do when we were on board. But my understanding is they'll work with you to make sure that they can accommodate a larger group if there is something specific that you're looking at doing. And that's kind of, you know, Disney in general, I would say they're always trying to make it easy for everybody and to be able to enjoy it. Like, obviously, they can't have everybody on the ship attend the royal gathering, for example. That's, you know, just not going to happen. But, you know, that's the nice, another perk of really using that group option is you're going to have somebody that's on that other side on Disney Cruise line helping guide you through that and be able to do what they can to be able to make those events happen.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think the earlier, like with everything Disney Cruise line, the earlier you ask, the better your chances are. Right? So, like, for example, you can book a group cruise after the booking window has already opened. You don't have to to do it. When Pearl booking window opens, you are not getting the benefit of that locked in early booking pricing. But as I think Karen had mentioned in the comments, some cruises you might actually be eligible for special group pricing. That just depends on the time of year and what Disney's offering at that point and how many rooms you can guarantee them. So there's going to be a lot of factors that vary in the, you know, if you are booking at some other point in time, you can still get benefits of group cruising. It's just like I said, not that, that pearl booking amount.
One thing Karen is mentioning in the.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: Comments, I was going to say, I read this and I was, like, doing the minions, like, what they had characters come to private group events, although she does note for a fairly steep fee.
[00:56:45] Speaker C: It's like with weddings. It's like with weddings, right? So with weddings on board weddings, just like they do at. At the parks.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:56:53] Speaker C: It's not full ship charter anyway.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to put out that Karen wants to do a full ship charter. Also, Angie, you might have missed this comment earlier in the show, and I said that we nominated Karen. She actually said, you're. Where is it? I nominate Angie as tribute. So we're gonna be doing all the book cruise group cruise bookings for my path unwinding going forward.
[00:57:09] Speaker A: Bring it on. I'll do it. Let's get a whole ship together. Can we aim for the magic or the wonderland?
[00:57:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and I honestly think that in general, for group cruising, it takes a high level of organization. So I would even say that, like, there are probably travel advisors out there who are great individuals for an individual booking, but I. That I would think might not be so great at a group cruise. It takes a huge amount of coordination. And I mean, Angie, you have such attention to detail and the fact that you had, like, different emails for different people based on, like, their experience level, because obviously, the more seasoned cruisers are not necessarily going to want an email that has, like, 20 pages telling them everything they could possibly do on board. They might be like, oh, my God, I don't need this. This is silly. But a new cruiser who doesn't know anything wants that level of detail, right? I mean, that's. Yeah, that's the funny part.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Well, I want to wind us down here, Sam, because we're running up on time. We got started on time tonight. I want to try to end on time tonight for the first time.
So, Angie, I want to say one other comment, which is, I think when you're dealing with group cruises, also just patience is a virtue and persistence is a necessity. That was something I sort of ferreted out in Karen's interactions. So lots of times she would ask for things. They wouldn't necessarily have information just yet. And so you had to persist in asking again and then just be patient as they sort of went through the process. So I think both of those things are something to keep in mind if you're thinking about a DCL group cruise. We had a, I just want to get emphasis. We had a fabulous experience with our group cruise. Loved everything about it. Still one of the most memorable experiences that we've had since starting this show. And we're, you know, full steam ahead. Looking forward to another one, you know, not on Disney Cruise line the next time. I think we're targeting ABd, but I'm sure we will be back in the, in the future. Um, Angie, if folks are excited now that you're the official group cruise planner for my path on wind and travel, great, Karen. It's documented. If people want to find you and talk more about group cruising or just book a Disney cruise and use your fabulous assistance and all your knowledge from being on the parks panel, let folks know where they can find you.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: So the best way to contact me is at Angie
[email protected]. shoot me an email. I'll get back to you right away.
And then the other way is just check out the mypathunwinding.com website and you'll be able to look at my profile from there and all of my fabulous team members that work with me. And we're happy to help you get that vacation settled and, you know, take the ease of planning for you so that we can take the tricky parts away from you.
[00:59:49] Speaker C: Yes, we love that. And when you reach out to Angie or you reach out to my path, unwinding travel, tell them that the DCl duo sent you so that they know that we sent you and so that they'll keep supporting our show. We love them and they love us, and we want to keep that relationship going for as long as humanly possible.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: With that first, Angie, thank you for taking time out of your evening to come on. We love having you on. I'm sure we will have you back soon. So thank you for taking that time. I want to let everyone out there know that we will be back again live next Monday night. The night before we actually travel to Miami to board virgin voyages, we will be live. There may be clothes piled up in the background behind me for packing on the couch next to me, but we will be live. We are super excited for the guests. We have, I alluded to her earlier. We have Emily joining us from we do Disney, right? She has some fabulous Instagram content. She goes to the parks a ton. She cruises a ton. We're excited to have her on. And I know she's excited to come on. So that will be a fantastic show. I also wanted to preview. We've got some really great live guests coming up. Even after her. On October 7, we'll be live talking about our virgin voyages, sailing and I.
[01:01:00] Speaker C: Mean fabulous guest, obviously.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: Well, I know folks are really excited to hear our thoughts on Virgin. So we will be on October 7 at the talk about that. We also have a show coming up on October 17, we will be live with Jenny and Leslie from the ultimate world cruise from Royal Caribbean. We're going to be doing a final wrap up show. They are back on land. Some of you may have seen the world cruise wrapped up and so they will been back about a month or five, maybe six weeks by then. And so we're excited to hear how reentry into civilization after nine months on a cruise ship has been for them. So really excited to have them on. So lots of great guests coming up. And in November, we've already lined up Rebecca Sutcliffe from the DCL community who we just adore, and we're going to have a fun little game show style show with her. We're going to do a little cruise ship draft and build our own Disney cruise line ships. And so excited to do that one. So lots of great content coming up. Mark your calendars. 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern Monday nights. We can't wait to see you all again. And for now, Angie, just one more time, thank you so much for coming on like and subscribe to our channel so you can keep getting these live episodes. And with that, we will say, have a great night, everyone, and we'll see you next time.
Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern over on YouTube.com dclduo. So be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, mypath Unwinding travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email email
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[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590 that's 402-413-5590 the DCL dual podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company, or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney vacation, please contact the great folks over at mypath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
